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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Country now on high alert for weather systems

by

Chester Sambrano
1121 days ago
20220626
Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, from left, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales, Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi and Communication Minister Symon de Nobriga at yesterday’s press briefing on weather alert.

Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, from left, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales, Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi and Communication Minister Symon de Nobriga at yesterday’s press briefing on weather alert.

“When­ev­er the ODPM (Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment) gets in­volved at the na­tion­al lev­el it says that some­thing se­ri­ous may be hap­pen­ing, and there­fore the fact that the ODPM is here to­day at this press con­fer­ence is an in­di­ca­tion of how se­ri­ous we need to take the warn­ings, the alerts that we have been get­ting from the Met Of­fice.”

ODPM CEO Rod­ney Smart made the point as he sat flanked by the Min­is­ters of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Works and Trans­port, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty/Pub­lic Util­i­ties and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day.

The min­is­ters are now part of a high-lev­el team ap­point­ed by the Cab­i­net to treat with two weath­er-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties cur­rent­ly fac­ing or ap­proach­ing the coun­try.

There was a yel­low lev­el alert which start­ed on Sun­day morn­ing but that was dis­con­tin­ued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

How­ev­er, a strong trop­i­cal wave in the At­lantic Ocean and ac­tiv­i­ty off the coast of Africa have cap­tured the at­ten­tion of the Gov­ern­ment.

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi said the gov­ern­ment is tak­ing the mat­ter se­ri­ous­ly.

“The Prime Min­is­ter him­self, as of last night trig­gered full ac­tiv­i­ty from Cal­i­for­nia, the act­ing Prime Min­is­ter the Ho­n­ourable Colm Im­bert held a meet­ing of all min­is­ters this morn­ing (Sun­day) in this team,” Al-Rawi ex­plained.

In ad­di­tion, he said a dis­as­ter meet­ing took place yes­ter­day morn­ing with all the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions.

“It is crit­i­cal that we take ad­van­tage of prepa­ra­tion. Why prepa­ra­tion? With three sys­tems com­ing po­ten­tial­ly back-to-back we on­ly have one op­por­tu­ni­ty to pre­pare,” Al-Rawi said.

He said they have since sent all cor­po­ra­tions out to do a base­line analy­sis to phys­i­cal­ly en­sure the state and con­di­tions of usu­al lo­ca­tions of flood­ing and land­slides.

Al-Rawi al­so said that, “It is im­per­a­tive that farm­ers and cit­i­zens that live in low ly­ing ar­eas ac­cept the re­al­i­ty that with heavy rain­fall there may be flood­ing is­sues.”

He as­sured that sand­bags and sand­pits are avail­able as well as tree cut­ting was be­ing done.

“We must al­ways pre­pare for the worst and pray for the best and ex­pect the best,” Al-Rawi added.

As it re­lates to pub­lic util­i­ties, Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les as­sured that all util­i­ty com­pa­nies are “on high alert” to give sup­port to oth­er state agen­cies.

As act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Gon­za­les said he had been in­formed by the ODPM that the Na­tion­al Emer­gency Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NEOC), which in­cludes the Po­lice Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice, De­fence Force, all util­i­ty com­pa­nies, Min­istry of Health and SWM­COL is ful­ly ac­ti­vat­ed.

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan in­di­cat­ed that a de­silt­ing pro­gramme had com­menced in Jan­u­ary and wa­ter lev­els in rivers had been man­aged well in the wake of re­cent heavy rain.

“So far we have been able to cope with it, how­ev­er, what we are see­ing on the hori­zon com­ing to us is a lot more down­pour over the next cou­ple of days and in the next week,” he added.

Sinanan said they will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor as well as de­silt.

In ad­di­tion, he said they “have pumps at all our sites, work­ing pumps. We do have peo­ple on the ground mon­i­tor­ing these pumps to en­sure that once they have to be ac­ti­vat­ed they will be ac­ti­vat­ed.”

In the event of pos­si­ble land­slides, Min­is­ter Sinanan said they are be­ing proac­tive.

“We al­so have equip­ment placed at dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions so in the event of a land­slip or so it will not take too long to have equip­ment on the ground and to have it cleared.”

He said, for ex­am­ple, they have al­ready sent some equip­ment to the North Coast.

“We are quite pre­pared to han­dle the dis­as­ter in the event of any dis­as­ter that may oc­cur with­in the com­ing days,” Sinanan as­sured.

But while the Gov­ern­ment said it is ful­ly pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ties, there is not yet any plan to keep peo­ple at home or off the roads.

Min­is­ter Al-Rawi said while pri­vate busi­ness­es can do as they see fit, but, “the gov­ern­ment is not mak­ing any spe­cif­ic rec­om­men­da­tion in that re­gard.”

In terms of schools, chil­dren will be re­quired to at­tend.

“School is on, all things re­main­ing equal,” Al-Rawi said.

DIS­AS­TER MAN­AGE­MENT UNIT – HOT­LINE NUM­BERS

Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion 800-2ABC (2222)

Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion 800- DCBC (3222)

Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - CTTC (2882)

Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - DM­RC (3672)

Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - PDRC (7372)

Point Fortin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - PF­BC (7322)

Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - PTRC (7872)

Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion 800- PSCC (7722)

San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - SC­DU (7238)

San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - SGRC (7472)

San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - SLRC (7572)

Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - 4SRC (4772)

Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - 4MRC (4672)

Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion 800 - TPRC (8772)

To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency - 211


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